Word: sds
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...sudden excitement, Boston University was spared a decision on the questions SDS had posed. Christ-Janer went ahead with the dedication ceremonies, apologizing for the "harrassment" of Gordon and sympathetically calling his withdrawal "understandable." The President has been out of town since, but both his office and Gordon's talk of friendly relations in the future...
THOUGH in one sense the protest got through to the Gordons, the protestors' message probably was not listened to. The money won't, as SDS asked, go to improving living conditions for Mr. Gordon's tenants; Gordon's son indicated Friday that his family would try to find another way to give the funds to B.U. He serenely dismisses the SDS "allegations" ("people took it upon themselves to say things without any basis, to act as both judge and jury. We're not even an owner in most of those areas any more . . ."). Gordon's son doesn't sound repentent...
...shock of last Tuesday's events fell hardest on the student protestors themselves. What to do next? First came a burst of penitence--a movement to raise the $500,000 from other sources, kicked off Thursday by a $500 pledge by the B.U. student government. SDS skeptics have resisted though--wouldn't it be more consistent to try to raise money to help Gordon's tenants...
THIS morass can be traced back to the original rationale of the protest. The demonstration was naturally tied to the demand that the University invest its assets with a social conscience. Like their counterparts at Harvard, the B.U. SDS attacked their University for its holding in Middle South Utilities, arguing that under the cover of "neutrality" the University was supporting repressive institutions. But the specific attack on Gordon involved a second, more radical premise--that the University couldn't accept a bad man's money, even for uses of its own. The reasoning leads down a path to nihilism...
Drawing the line at Gordon's gift was a tactical rather than a rigidly logical decision then. And tactically it did make sense. SDS got Gordon's name and its charges against him onto the front pages of Boston papers. Administrators--at B.U. and elsewhere--may ponder the event as evidence of just how intensely students can care about the social implications of the University's financial policy, and how effectively they can obstruct a business transaction. The broad outlines of the affair might even inspire some of the reexamination of University neutrality SDS aims...